Open
Access to Criminal Justice Scholarship: A Matter of Social Justice
Authors: Allan Scherlen; Matthew Robinson
DOI: 10.1080/10511250801892961
Publication
Frequency: 3 issues per year
Published in: Journal of
Criminal
Justice Education, Volume 19, Issue 1 March 2008 , pages 54
- 74
Abstract
The paper argues
that
criminal justice scholarship disseminated through the traditional
journal
subscription model is not consistent with social justice. Adoption of
"open access" principles in publishing benefits both authors and
readers through broader and more egalitarian dissemination of criminal
justice
literature. Moreover, when viewed in light of social justice theory,
open
access is a more just method of scholarly communication. After
providing a
brief outline of the history and basic aspects of open access, the
paper uses
the framework of the social justice theories of John Rawls and David
Miller to
argue why open access is more just than traditional subscription models
of
publishing and why criminal justice scholars and their associations
must
consider the importance of supporting open access initiatives and
promoting the
dissemination of scholarship as widely as possible if they are
concerned about
attaining justice for criminal justice scholarly literature.
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Introduction
The
discipline of criminal justice concerns itself
first and foremost with issues of "justice," but ironically the
process for the dissemination of scholarship within the discipline of
criminal
justice is inconsistent with theories of social justice articulated by
justice
theorists, John Rawls and David Miller. Currently, criminal justice
societies,
like those of most other academic disciplines, publish articles in
journals
that have been outsourced to large corporations which maintain a profit
by
limiting access to scholarship through ever-inflating subscription
barriers.
Traditional models of disseminating knowledge through subscriptions
served
scholarship well through the twentieth century but are now limiting the
potential for authors' impact and readers' access.
Since the
advent of the Internet, the ways scholars
create and share academic research have rapidly changed. Throughout the
late
1990s and into the 21st century, scholars in various fields began to
realize
that they could create an academic journal and distribute it on the web
for a
minimal cost, while others found that they could post their published
papers on
their own websites. Meanwhile, commercial publishers discovered that
the power of
digital technologies allowed them to turn academic journal publishing
into a
profitable business. The traditional paper journal was rapidly becoming
obsolete in the face of online innovations, while new methods for
digitally
sharing journal articles, research data, and other findings were
promising to
better serve the advancement of knowledge and to benefit both authors
and
readers more effectively.
Developments
in new knowledge sharing technologies
coupled with concern over the alarming inflation rate of journal
subscription
prices over the last 20 years led to a variety of innovations that have
come to
be referred to as "open access." These initiatives have dealt in one
way or another with freeing reader's access to academic research
literature
from financial obstacles of the traditional subscription model of
journal
publishing, so anyone who has access to the Internet can access
scholarship.
Three major manifestations of "open access" that have emerged are:
free open access academic journals, free access to the back files of
some
subscription journals, and permissions by subscription journals for
authors to
self archive on a website or in an e-repository.
Many
criminal justice scholars and practitioners may
be unaware of this growing development in scholarly communication that
is
changing how we think about sharing research and revolutionizing our
traditional notions of academic publishing. Scholars, publishers, and
organizations within criminal justice must now become aware and address
the
issues around open access for at least two reasons. First, it will
benefit them
with more online readers and more professional impact; second, it will
benefit
students, practitioners in the field and less fortunate researchers
around the
world who cannot afford to pay for subscription access to cutting edge,
criminal justice journal literature. It is thus natural that, since
justice is
at the core of what criminal justice scholars pursue, they and their
supporting
associations address the justice of opening access to their own
literature.
In this
paper, we introduce the open access movement
and discuss its implications for social justice. After examining two
contemporary statements by major social justice thinkers, we then argue
that
limiting access to information by criminal justice societies is
inconsistent
with these theories of social justice. Conversely, we argue that the
open
access movement is consistent with social justice.
What Is
Open Access?
Background
- Corporate
Journal Publishing and the Internet
The origin
of open access can be traced both to the
advent of the Internet providing the means of more easily and widely
disseminating scholarly information and to a reaction to the rising
cost of
subscription journals, especially in the areas of science, technology,
and
medicine.
Since the
1960s, the number of journals available for
a given discipline has steadily increased. For example, in 1960, the
discipline
of economics was served by approximately 30 journals (almost all of
which were
produced by scholarly associations). By 1980, there were 120 titles
(half of
which were published by corporate publishers), and by 2000 the number
had risen
to over 300 (two-thirds of which were corporate published) (Willinsky 2006). Today, a handful of corporate
publishers produce
a growing portion of academic literature. For example, as of December
2006,
three publishers - Reed Elsevier (with over 2,000 journal titles),
Taylor &
Francis (with over 1,000 titles) and Springer (with over 1,700) -
controlled
about 60 percent of the research indexed in ISI Web of Science citation
index
(Willinsky 2006). Expanding
the list of
the largest journal publishers, we should add John Wiley (which
recently
acquired Blackwell for 1.08 billion dollars and can now boast a
combined
catalog of 1,250 journals).1
Since the
mid-1990s, subscription prices for journals
published by corporate publishers, especially in the areas of science,
technology, and medicine, have been inflating at alarming rates. For
example,
McCabe (2002) reports that
between 1988
and 1998, the subscription cost of biomedical journals published by
corporate
publishers increased by 224 percent, compared to 129 percent for
journals from
nonprofit publishers. From 1986 to 2002, the Consumer Price Index rose
64
percent, while journal prices rose 227 percent. Thus, a typical
research
library spent 227 percent more on journals in 2002 than in 1986, but
the number
of titles purchased increased by only 6 percent.2 Journal inflation continues to
increase at a rate of
6-12 percent annually, and this has to some degree been responsible for
the 6
percent decrease in the purchase of books by research libraries between
1986
and 2002.3
A number
of university libraries post the cost of
their most expensive journals. Cornell University did a study of the
rising
cost of journals back in 1998 and found that subscriptions to the 312
research
journals studied were as high as $5,000 a year.4
In 1997, Yale noted 27 journal titles that cost over $4,000. The
following
subscription prices were among the most expensive journals to which
they
subscribed: Journal of Physics at $22,497, Brain Research
at
$14,919, and Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology at $7,398.5 The average subscription price
that a
university library paid for an academic journal in 2005 was $484.97.6
In
criminal justice and criminology, respectively, the
national associations of record are the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences
(ACJS) and the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Each provides
journals to
their members as part of the cost of membership. For ACJS, that cost is
$75,
and for ASC, the cost is $90. ACJS provides two journals through
Routledge
Journals - Justice Quarterly and the Journal of Criminal
Justice
Education. The 2006 institution subscription rate for Justice
Quarterly
was $482.7
The 2006 institution subscription rate for the Journal of Criminal
Justice
Education was $372.8
ASC
provides two journals through Blackwell Publishing - Criminology
and Criminology
& Public Policy. The 2006 institution subscription rate for Criminology
was $240, which includes a subscription to Criminology & Public
Policy.9
One must
keep in mind that though the cost of academic
journals continues to inflate into the three, four, and even five
digits, the
cost of much of the research upon which the articles are based was born
by
grant funding agencies, authors' home institutions, and authors
themselves. The
labor for peer review of submitted articles is also generally done
gratis by
academicians in the field.
There are
over 24,000 peer-reviewed research journals
in the world across the disciplines, publishing well over 2.5 million
articles
a year (Harnad et al. 2004).
But
since library budgets are limited, they can afford only a small
fraction of
those journals each year. Yet, Harnad warns that we must be careful not
to
suggest open access as a solution to the problem of dealing with
rapidly rising
subscription costs, the so-called "serials crisis." There will
continue to be a gap between the volume of literature available and the
financial ability of libraries to acquire as much as they would like.
As Harnad
and colleagues (2004) have
noted, there
is a difference between "the journal-affordability problem" and the
"article-access/impact problem." The latter problem is a by-product
of the proliferation of journal titles and the serials crisis. The
article-access/impact problem states that since so few of the 2.5
million
articles published every year can be accessed by many people, the
impact of
those articles is diminished. Open access promises to provide more
access to
this growing body of literature to those who need immediate access to
it.
The
evolution in scholarly publishing, in which a few
corporate publishers have come to dominate the journal publishing world
with
ever inflating subscription prices, is further complicated by bundled
deals
where libraries are increasingly under pressure to contract for
collections of
publishers' titles rather than individual titles. This trend is
becoming
economically unsustainable. The result of such a corporate model
ultimately is
that library institutions' budgets are strained, library resources for
other
materials must be cut, and researchers and students have diminishing
access to
relevant scholarship.
Those who
look to interlibrary loan (
Defining
and
Differentiating Open Access
Though
open access has come to represent a spectrum of
means to provide free access to scholarly literature, the basic
principles were
codified by definitive statements made by three influential
proclamations: the
Budapest (February 2002), Bethesda (June 2003) and Berlin (October
2003)
definitions. Essentially, open access, paraphrasing the Budapest
statement, is
defined as free availability of scholarly literature on the public
Internet,
permitting anyone to read, download, copy, distribute, or print the
full text
without restrictions (other than to give authors control over the
integrity of
their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited).10
While the
Discussions
around open access are often fraught with
fear and anger over what some perceive as attempts to destroy the peer
review
system, discard the protections of copyright or to make scholarship
less
rigorous. Proponents of open access will argue that they are not asking
for
research literature to be placed in the public domain or even to reform
copyright law. Nor are they asking that all scholarship (e.g., books)
be open
access. They also are not appealing to do away with peer-review or
academic
associations. On the contrary, these could both be reinvigorated by the
broad
acceptance of, support for, and involvement in open access by academic
associations. Open access is instead based on the assertion that the
traditional model of academic journal publishing be modified or
augmented so
that scholarship will be more accessible to wider audiences.
The call
for open access, it must be understood, is
not a call to shun subscription publishers or for libraries to cancel
their
journals. In fact, ironically, it can be argued that one of the
greatest
contributors to open access is the giant publishing conglomerate, Reed
Elsevier. Not only does Reed Elsevier allow its authors to post the
final
versions of papers on websites and e-repositories, it also provides
free
electronic access to the citations and abstracts of its 2000+ journals.
Along with
a number of other publishers, Elsevier has also agreed to make its
journals
open access to a list of institutions and countries in some the most
impoverished areas of the world.11
Though this effort is to be lauded, only a fraction of those in
developing
countries in need of access to current scholarship, unfortunately, are
reached
through these assistance efforts.
Open
Access Journals
The most
direct and purest form of open access is the
so-called "gold path," scholarship published in an open access journal,
freely available to readers on the Internet. Financial support for such
journals may entirely come from an academic institution or a scholarly
or
professional association. In the case of Science, Technology, and
Medicine
(STM) open access journals, funding often is also acquired by asking
that a
portion of the research grant funding be directed toward publishing
costs. The
goal of open access is to shift thinking away from charging readers
toward
considering the dissemination of scholarship as part of the cost of
research
that should be included in funding requests from research grant
agencies and/or
one's departmental funding requests similar to how professional travel
funds
are allocated.
The Public
Library of Science journals, PLoS
Biology and PLoS Medicine, are perhaps the most widely
known open
access journals, having quickly garnered respect in their disciplines
along
with a flurry of press coverage at their inception. More than 2,500
open-access
journals in wide-ranging fields are currently listed in the Directory
of
Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which indexes open access journals on
the web.12 A search
of the DOAJ database, freely
available online, will reveal that among the 2,500 open access journals
indexed, a small but growing number of peer-reviewed open access
journals in
criminal justice have already become available on the web.13 Open access journals perform
peer-review
and then make the resulting approved scholarship free to the world. New
open
access journal benefit from open source, journal management systems,
such as
Open Journal Systems (OJS), and from organizations, such as SPARC, that
provide
advisory service for new open access journals.14
Open
Access Archives
Since the
early 1990s, researchers in physics have
shared their research freely online through arXiv.org before
publication. Open
digital archives such as arXiv.org, PubMed Central, and a rapidly
growing
number of institution-based e-repositories enable authors to ensure
their works
are available for fellow researchers and the public, and thus assure a
free
flow of scholarly communication. Depositing one's scholarship in a
properly
designed e-repository rather than on a personal website assures that
the
scholarship will have a persistent address (URL) over the long term and
have searchable
metadata (conforming to universal standards across repositories), and
that the
scholarship will be properly preserved and accessible to the entire
world in
the future. Today, over 90 percent of academic journal publishers
permit
authors some form of self-archiving.15
Since the great majority of academic journals now permit self-archiving
by
their authors either on the author's website or in the author's
institutional
e-repository (IR), much of the responsibility for making journal
literature
open access has been shifted to the authors. By depositing a digital
copy of
scholarship on a website or in an IR, they can make the item accessible
to
anyone who searches the web using Google or a special repository search
engine
such as OAIster.org.
The number
of universities around the
The US
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access
Policy in recent years has directed that its funded researchers deposit
their
final peer-reviewed manuscripts in PubMed Central, NIH's online digital
archive. NIH also permits grant funds to be used to pay journal
publication
fees. The US Congress is also taking a growing interest in ensuring
access to
federally funded research. For example, on May 2, Sen. John Cornyn,
R-Texas,
introduced the bipartisan Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006
(FRPAA)
which would require that research supported by major government funding
agencies (with research budgets of more than $100 million) be made
freely
available online within 6 months of publication. This legislation is
pending as
of this writing.16
There is a
growing alliance of citizens in the
Open
Access and the
Public Good
In
addition to citizen concern for access to
taxpayer-funded research that is blocked by subscription tolls, there
is a
growing consensus among scholars across disciplines in favor of
providing open
access to as much scholarly communication as possible, not only because
it is
the best means of disseminating the knowledge of a discipline and
advancing
research but also because it benefits the public good. Opening access
to
scholarship for users around the world promises to benefit people in
numerous
ways.
Open
access, for example, permits a doctor doing
research in
What Is
Social Justice?
Social
justice is generally equated with the notion of
equality or equal opportunity in society. Although equality is
undeniably part
of social justice, the meaning of social justice is actually much
broader.
Further, "equal opportunity" and similar phrases such as
"personal responsibility" have been used to diminish the prospective
for realizing social justice by justifying enormous inequalities in
modern
society (Berry 2005). The
most recent
theories of and scholarly statements about social justice illustrate
the
complex nature of the concept.
Two of the
most prominent statements about social
justice, each of which posits its own theory of social justice, are
John Rawls'
(2003) Justice as Fairness
and
David Miller's (2003) Principles
of
Social Justice. While neither of these theories can be considered
an
exhaustive treatment of the subject matter, each offers a complex
theory of
social justice that illustrates its broad meaning. Both conceptions of
social
justice are similar, so there is significant overlap between the main
ideas of
the theorists; this is likely due to the fact that they are founded on
like
principles and based on previously posited theories from significant
historical
political philosophers (Brighouse 2005).
John
Rawls'
"Justice as Fairness"
Beginning
with John Rawls, his theory of social
justice is referred to as "justice as fairness." Rawls (2003) set out to sketch a theory of
social
justice that would answer the questions: "once we view a democratic
society as a fair system of social cooperation between citizens
regarded as
free and equal, what principles are most appropriate to it?" and "
which principles are most appropriate for a democratic society that not
only
professes but wants to take seriously that citizens are free and equal,
and
tries to realize that idea in its main institutions?"18
Rawls'
theory of "justice as fairness,"
aimed at answering the above questions, can be summarized with two
primary
principles. They are:
According
to Rawls, these principles are ordered,
meaning the first principle (the "equal liberties principle") should
be achieved before efforts to achieve the second principle are
attempted.
Further, the first part of the second principle (the "equal opportunity
principle")
precedes the second part (the "difference principle"). The ordering
of the principles suggests that, to Rawls, equality is the most
important
element of social justice. Equality means a fair distribution of each
of the
capacities needed "to be normal and fully cooperating members of
society
over a complete life" (Rawls 2003:18).
Just
because Rawls' conception of social justice
values equality, this does not mean that equal outcomes will be
achieved in
society, or that they even can be. In fact, Rawls' second principle
asserts
that inequalities in society are acceptable as long as they meet two
conditions. First, as per the "equal opportunity principle,"
inequalities are acceptable if every person in society has a reasonable
chance
of obtaining the positions that lead to the inequalities. An example
would be
equal opportunity to achieve any job. Rawls (2003:43)
specifies that "fair equality of opportunity" requires "not
merely that public offices and social positions open in the formal
sense, but
that all should have a fair chance to attain them."
Second, as
per the "difference principle,"
inequalities in society must be organized so that they are to the
greatest
benefit of the least advantaged members of society. After explaining
that
today's economic inequalities are simply not acceptable, Rawls (2003:59-60) explains the difference
principle
this way: "To say that inequalities in income and wealth are to be
arranged for the greatest benefit of the least advantaged simply means
that we
are to compare schemes of cooperation by seeing how well off the least
advantaged are under each scheme, and then to select the scheme under
which the
least advantaged are better off than they are under any other scheme."
By the
least advantaged, Rawls is referring to those
who lack what he calls "primary goods" (Rawls 2003:53). Primary goods, according to
Rawls,
include
things
needed and required by persons seen in the
light of the political conception of persons, as citizens who are fully
cooperating members of society, and not merely as human beings apart
from any
normative conception. These goods are things citizens need as free and
equal
persons living a complete life; they are not things it is simply
rational to
want or desire, or to prefer or even to crave. (Rawls 2003:58)
Such goods
include:
It should
also be noted that Rawls (2003:13)
acknowledges the importance of
"human rights" as well. He writes: "A just world order is
perhaps best seen as a society of peoples, each people maintaining a
well-ordered and decent political (domestic) regime, not necessarily
democratic
but fully respecting basic human rights." Human rights are expansive
and
include rights in the following areas: general freedom; dignity; life;
liberty;
security; equality before the law; fair and public hearings by
independent and
impartial tribunals; presumption of innocence until proven guilty;
freedom of
movement and residence; right to seek and gain asylum from persecution;
right
to a nationality; the right to marry and have a family; right to own
property; freedom
of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of opinion and
expression;
freedom of peaceful assembly and association; the right to participate
in
government; the right to social security; the right to work by free
choice and to
have protection against unemployment; the right to equal pay for equal
work;
the right to rest and leisure; the right to an adequate standard of
living,
including "food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social
services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age "; the right to education; the
right
to participate in the community and "to enjoy the arts and to share
in
scientific advancement and its benefits"; the right to the "protection
of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific,
literary or
artistic production of which [one] is the author." Additionally,
people enjoy freedom from slavery or servitude; torture or cruel,
inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment; discrimination; arbitrary arrest,
detention,
or exile; arbitrary interference with privacy; among many others.22
Those
rights that we have emphasized relate to open
access of knowledge and scholarship. Since Rawls emphasizes human
rights in his
theory of justice as fairness, and since some of the human rights
relate to
access to knowledge and benefits of scholarship, Rawls' theory of
justice as
fairness is directly relevant to issues of open access.
We can use
Rawls' theory of "justice as
fairness" to determine if any process or outcome is consistent with
social
justice. When a process or outcome does not comport with any of Rawls'
principles, we can conclude that it is not consistent with social
justice. That
is, something is not consistent with Rawls' conception of social
justice if it
interferes with any person's indefensible claims to equal basic
liberties (the
"equal liberties principle"); or if inequalities in society are not
attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality
of opportunity (the "equal opportunity principle"); or if
inequalities in society are not arranged to the greatest benefit of the
least-advantaged members of society (the "difference principle").
David
Miller's
"Pluralistic Theory of Social Justice"
David
Miller's theory comprises a wider range of
concepts than that of John Rawls. The theory is pluralistic or
circumstantial
because different parts of his conception of social justice are more or
less
relevant depending on the circumstances (Miller 2003:62-63).
To Miller,
social justice deals with the distribution
of good and bad in society, and more specifically with how these things
should
be distributed within society.23
Miller (2003:1) explains that
when
"we attack some policy or some state of affairs as socially unjust, we
are
claiming that a person, or more usually a category of persons, enjoys
fewer
advantages than that person or group of persons ought to enjoy (or
bears more
of the burdens than they ought to bear), given how other members of the
society
in question are fairing."
Given this
conception of social justice, it is not
surprising that Miller's theory focuses on the concepts of need,
desert, and
equality. Need is a claim that one is lacking is basic necessities and
is being
harmed or is in danger of being harmed and/or that one's capacity to
function
is being impeded (Miller 2003:207,
210).
Desert is a claim that one has earned reward based on performance, that
superior performance should attract superior recognition (Miller 2003:134, 141). Equality refers to the
social
ideal that society regards and treats its citizens as equals, and that
benefits
such as certain rights should be distributed equally (Miller 2003:232).
Miller's (2003:25)
theory asserts that whether need, desert, or equality takes precedence
depends
on which "mode of human relationship" is being considered. This is
because "we can best understand which demands of justice someone can
make
of us by looking first at the particular nature of relationship." A
"mode
of human relationship" refers to the different kinds of relationships
that
people have with one another.
Miller (2003:26)
specifies three basic modes of human relationships, including the
solidaristic
community, instrumental associations, and citizenship. A solidaristic
community
"exists when people share a common identity as members of a relatively
stable group with a common ethos" (e.g., family relations). In this
mode
of human relationships, the principle of distribution according to need
is most
relevant:
Each
member is expected to contribute to relieving the
needs of others in proportion to ability, the extent of liability
depending
upon how close the ties of community are in each case Needs will be
understood
in terms of the general ethos of the community. Each community
embodies,
implicitly or explicitly, a sense of the standards that an adequate
human life
must meet, and it is in terms of this benchmark that the much-contested
distinction between needs, which are matters of justice, and mere wants
is
drawn. (Miller 2003:27)
Instrumental
associations exist when "people
relate to one another in a utilitarian manner; each has aims and
purposes that
can best be realized by collaboration with others" (e.g., economic
relations). In this mode of human relationships, the principle of
distribution
according to desert is most relevant:
Each
person comes to the association as a free agent
with a set of skills and talents that he deploys to advance its goals.
Justice
is done when he receives back by way of reward an equivalent to the
contribution he makes. A person's deserts, in other words, are fixed by
the
aims and purposes of the association to which she belongs; these
provide the
measuring rod in terms of which relative contributions can be judged.
(Miller 2003:28).
Finally,
citizenship refers to "members of a
political society" in "modern liberal democracies" who
are
related not just through their communities and
their instrumental associations but also as fellow citizens. Anyone who
is a
full member of such a society is understood to be the bearer of a set
of rights
and obligations that together define the status of citizen.
In this
mode of human relationship, the principle of
distribution according to equality is most relevant because everyone in
the
society is deemed equal in terms of certain rights (Miller 2003:30).
Because of
the citizenship mode, rights play a
significant role in Miller's theory of social justice as they also did
in
Rawls' theory. Miller (2003:13)
explains
that
a central
element in any theory of justice will be an
account of the basic rights of citizens, which will include rights to
various
concrete liberties, such as freedom of movement and freedom of speech
an
extensive sphere of basic liberty is built into the requirements of
social
justice itself.
As noted
in the discussion of John Rawls, the meaning
human rights is well understood, and includes rights in dozens of
areas,
including several related to open access to knowledge and scholarship.
Miller
does not build a theory of social justice that
requires one to emphasize either need, desert, or equality over the
others;
rather, he presents a theory whereby the three are in balance with one
another.
Because people's views about justice are pluralistic and "very often
people decide what a fair distribution consists of by balancing claims
of one
kind against claims of another," it follows that "the social context
in which the distribution has to be made - or more precisely how that
context
is perceived by those making the judgment - will determine which
principle
stands out as the relevant principle of justice" (Miller 2003:63).
A
significant issue, though, is which should take
precedence when there are conflicting demands and expectations for
processes
that aim to accommodate need, desert, and equality, as well as for
outcomes
that satisfy need, desert, and equality. Miller prioritizes need above
desert,
and desert above equality, although he also points out that at times,
desert
can take precedence over need (as in the case where the needy are not
seen as deserving)
(Miller 2003:76-78). Miller
is careful
to point out that "[m]erit of any sort should only be allowed to govern
the distribution of a certain range of goods and services, and in
particular not
those goods and services that people regard as necessities, such as
health
care" (Miller 2003:200,
emphasis
added). To the degree that access to knowledge is such a necessity,
claims
based on need ought to take priority over claims based on desert.
We can use
Miller's pluralistic theory of social
justice to determine if any process or outcome is consistent with
social
justice. When a process or outcome does not comport with any of
Millers'
principles, we can conclude that it is not consistent with social
justice. That
is, something is not consistent with Miller's conception of social
justice if
it interferes with one's necessities or hurts one's capacity to
function, if it
interferes with claims based on desert, or if it impedes equal
opportunity or
treatment.
How
Current Criminal
Justice Publishing Is Inconsistent with Social Justice
In this
section of the paper, we utilize Rawls' and
Miller's theories to determine if current publishing agreements in
criminal
justice are consistent with social justice. Here, we show how
publishing in the
criminal justice discipline is inconsistent with the Rawls' equal
liberties
principle, equal opportunity principle, and difference principle.
Further, we
illustrate how criminal justice publishing is inconsistent with
Miller's
principles of need, desert, and equality. We conclude by showing how
open
access publishing is more consistent with social justice.
Equal
Liberties
Principle
With
regard to the relationship between open access
and Rawls' equal liberties principle, international law suggests that
all human
beings have a right to knowledge. Further, human beings and societies
have an
equal right to benefit from advances in knowledge. And finally, all
individuals
have the right to benefit from their own work.
Some of
these rights are stated in at least three
separate documents: (1) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; (2)
the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and (3) the
International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Starting with the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 states: "Everyone has the right
to
freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers" (emphasis added).
Further, Article 27.1 reads: "Everyone has the right freely to
participate
in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share
in
scientific advancement and its benefits" (United Nations 1997c, emphasis added). Similar
wording is found
in Article 19.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights.
Article
19.3 of that document shows clearly that
restrictions on this right merely for economic gain are not acceptable:
The
exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2
of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It
may
therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be
such as
are provided by law and are necessary: For respect of the rights or
reputations
of others; For the protection of national security or of public order,
or of
public health or morals. (United Nations 1997a,
emphasis added)
Additionally,
Article 13.1 of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights states: "The States
Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to
education.
They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of
the
human personality and the sense of its dignity, and shall strengthen
the
respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree
that
education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a
free
society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all
nations
and all racial, ethnic or religious groups, and further the activities
of the United
Nations for the maintenance of peace" (emphasis added). Article 13.2
adds
that education should be free to all and generally
available and
accessible to all (United Nations 1997b,
emphasis added).
Another
article, Article 15.1 goes on to explain:
The States
Parties to the present covenant recognize
the right of everyone: To take part in cultural life; To enjoy the
benefits
of scientific progress and its applications; To benefit from
the
protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any
scientific,
literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
(emphasis
added).
Finally,
Articles 15.2-15.4 read: "The steps to
be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the
full
realization of this right shall include those necessary for the conservation,
the development and the diffusion of science and culture" (United
Nations 1997b, emphasis
added).
From the
above passages, it is clear the restricting
access to knowledge is not consistent with the equal liberties
principle. A
more just arrangement would allow greater access to scholarship in
order to
assure the protection of the liberty of knowledge.
Equal
Opportunity
Principle
Similar to
the argument above with regard to the equal
liberties principle, all human beings are owed an equal opportunity to
access
scholarship. Restricting access to knowledge by limiting access to
scholarship
interferes with the realization of Rawls' principle of equal
opportunity.
The
passages of international law cited above make it
clear not only that do human beings enjoy the right to
knowledge in all
its forms, but also that this right is an equal right. The
assertions
found within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that everyone
has
the right to freedom of opinion and expression (including seeking,
receiving
and imparting information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers) and a right to equal education exemplifies the importance of
equality.
From the
above passages, it is clear the restricting
access to knowledge is not consistent with Rawls' equal liberties
principle. A
more just arrangement would allow greater access to equal opportunities
in
order to assure the protection of equal rights to knowledge.
Difference
Principle
With
regard to Rawls' difference principle,
inequalities in access to information are clearly not to the benefit of
the
least advantaged. In fact, inequalities in access widen the gap between
those
who have access to information and those who do not, for the reason
that some
are permitted to further advance while some are not. This is true at
the
individual level, group level, community level, organization level, and
society
level. That is, differential access to information harms disadvantaged
individuals, the groups and organizations to which they belong, the
communities
from which they come, and the societies of which they are members.
The fact
that publishing agreements benefit the well
off - large, wealthy corporations - is not consistent with Rawls'
difference
principle. Nor is the inequality acceptable because the inequality is
not
explained by any differential claim based on merit or desert. Large
corporate
journal publishers have not done anything to earn the right to
distribute
knowledge created by the scholarly pursuits of individual authors, who
would
seem to have the most sound merit- and desert-based claims to reward.
Additionally, large corporate journal publishers have not earned the
right to
limit access to this knowledge. Finally, state and federal governments,
who
fund scholarship of individual authors through salaries, benefits, and
grants,
deserve access to the scholarship produced by authors.
Current
publishing arrangements in criminal justice do
the most harm to those who are already least advantaged. The least
advantaged
include those suffering from criminal victimization at the hands of
common
street criminals and elite individuals and corporations, as well as the
mostly
reactive and failing agencies of criminal justice (Robinson 2005; Shelden 2000).
If criminologists and criminal justicians are to actually impact policy
through
their scientific work, it must be made accessible to all, especially to
those
who can most benefit from their work (e.g., policy-makers and the
masses who
elect them into power). The normal game and expectation of publishing
for the
sake of publishing must be challenged if our research is ever going to
impact
real-world policy. Current criminal justice publishing arrangements are
inconsistent
with Rawls' difference principle.
Need
Given the
general purposes of science, access to
knowledge assists people with their own personal and professional
advancement
and thus the ability to satisfy their basic needs. An example is higher
education which allows its participants to better meet their own needs.
Differential access to education, which includes access to knowledge,
interferes with people's basic abilities to satisfy their needs and is
thus
inconsistent with Miller's principle of need.
At the
society level, with advancement of individual
citizens comes a greater enjoyment of benefits by a larger segment of
the
population. Thus, differential access to information harms societies by
interfering with the ability of societies to advance. Ultimately, this
leads to
the maintenance of significant gaps between first- and third-world
countries.
In terms
of research into crime and responses to it,
differential access to knowledge generated by experts assures that the
needs of
some will not be met as readily as others. Restricting access to
criminal
justice scholarship interferes with the ability of criminal justice
agencies
and their employees to adjust, rethink, and retool their existing
policies, as
well as to create new and more effective ones. Thus, current criminal
justice
publishing arrangements are inconsistent with Miller's principle of
need.
Desert
As noted
above, all human beings deserve access to
knowledge. Thus, any interference with this right is unjust. Publishing
arrangements that restrict access to information people deserve by way
of being
human beings as well as citizens is not consistent with social justice.
Criminal justice publishing agreements interfere with Miller's
principle of
desert.
Further,
international law shows that scholars in all
fields (including criminal justice) have earned the right to access the
knowledge they create as well as that being created by others in their
fields.
The current publication approach in criminal justice makes such access
impossible, as authors often must assign copyrights to publishing
giants that
limits the use of and access to their own work. Further, we all suffer
from not
being able to access articles and other works unless we subscribe to
certain
journals and pay fees to do so. None of this is consistent with social
justice.
Scholars, as the creators of the knowledge published in our
associations'
journals, deserve the right to publish their work freely, to access it
later
without restriction, and to make their work as widely available as
possible
through self-archiving.
Beyond
this, authors are not benefiting financially
from their work by assigning copyrights to large corporations. Instead,
large
corporations are benefiting - not because of claims rooted in
differential
desert or merit - but instead from their already prominent place in
society.
This is also inconsistent with Miller's principle of desert. While
large
journals publishers assist with the dissemination of scholarship to
large
audiences - a practice beneficial to academic societies as well as
society in
general - any restrictions on the accessibility of this scholarship are
inconsistent with social justice.
Equality
As
suggested above, access to knowledge in the current
approach is arranged in an unequal fashion. Subscription policies are
unequal
in terms of who benefits from them, and societal inequality is being
widened by
them. These are violations of Miller's equality principle.
People of
the
Finally,
related to each of the above principles,
limited access to knowledge assures that our work will have less
influence on
real-world policy. Even those few journals that have been created in
order to
explicitly be policy-relevant are not widely read by policy-makers, in
part
because they are not accessible to them. One outcome of this limited
access is
a continuation of criminal justice policy being created for ideological
and
philosophical reasons rather than being impacted and directed by
scientific
evidence. This assures further suffering for members of society at the
hands of
both criminals and criminal justice agencies, for current criminal
justice
practices do not significantly reduce criminal victimization nor do
they often
achieve justice (Reiman 2006;
Robinson 2005; Shelden 2000).
How
Open Access Is
Consistent with Social Justice
The open
access movement - online open access journals
and author self-archiving - is more consistent with the conceptions of
social justice
by Rawls and Miller. Because open access does not interfere with any
person's
indefensible claims to equal basic liberties (the "equal liberties
principle"), it is consistent with social justice. Further, open access
does not violate the "equal opportunity principle" and in fact
assures for greater equality of access to information. We also believe
that
open access is to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged and thus
is
consistent with the "difference principle." That is, open access
publishing aims to benefit all equally, which over time, will assist
the least
advantaged in catching up to the most well-off in society (who have
long
benefitted from greater access to knowledge in all areas of life).
Additionally,
open access does not interfere with
anyone's necessities and does not hurt anyone's capacity to function.
Open
access also does not interfere with desert (but instead rewards it to a
higher
degree) and does not impede equal opportunity or treatment. Therefore,
open
access is consistent with social justice.
Beyond not
violating the principles of social
justice posited by Rawls and Miller, open access advances the
principles of
justice found in these scholars' theories of social justice. It does
this by
promoting (in both theory and practice) liberty, opportunity, and
equality of
access to information for all, as well as proper reward for individuals
who
produce scholarship. It is also better able to meet the needs of
citizens for
information, as well as meet appropriate claims of merit by scholars
who
deserve it. Open access also is consistent with the international laws
the
Conclusion
In this
paper, we outlined the open access movement,
introduced two main theories of social justice, and applied the main
principles
from the theories of social justice to the modus operandi of criminal
justice
publishing. By doing so, we determined the specific ways in which
current
criminal justice publishing practices are inconsistent with social
justice. Our
main finding was that publishing in the criminal justice discipline is
inconsistent with John Rawls' equal liberties principle, equal
opportunity
principle, and difference principle, as well as David Miller's
principles of
need, desert, and equality. Finally, we concluded that open access
publishing
is more consistent with social justice.
It is a
crucial time in the evolution of publishing
for criminal justice associations. We, as criminal justice scholars
concerned
with practicing justice ourselves, have the opportunity to set an
example for
other disciplines in the area of open access. This can entail moving
toward
opening access to our own journals as much as possible, educating
association
members on open access alternatives, and making articles already
published in
subscription-based journals open access by encouraging our members to
self-archive them in e-repositories.
References
Notes
1. See
Lenzini 2006.
2. See the
"The Economics of Publishing,"
3. See the
4.
"$3,000-a-year journal subscriptions endanger
major sources of research information, Cornell panel says," Cornell
News.
February 24, 1999. Retrieved February 18, 2007, from http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb99/JournalPrices.bpf.html
5. Kline
Science Library MOST EXPENSIVE JOURNALS.
Retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.library.yale.edu/scilib/ksljrnlexp98.html
6. EBSCO
Information Services, produced a chart that
shows price fluctuations for 2000-2005 for typical library lists
invoiced in US
dollars. Retrieved February 19, 2007, from http://www-us.ebsco.com/home/printsubs/priceoverview.pdf
7. Taylor
& Francis (2007). Journal details,
Justice Quarterly. Retrieved 17 February 2007, from http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=0741-8825&linktype=rates
8. Taylor
& Francis (2007). Journal details,
Journal of Criminal Justice Education. Retrieved 17 February 2007, from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1051-1253&linktype=rates
9.
Blackwell Publishing (2007). Criminology. Retrieved
17 February 2007, from http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/subs.asp?ref=0011-1384&site=1
10. A key
web-based reference source was created and
is maintained by Peter Suber. It provides a thorough "guide to the
terminology, acronyms, initiatives, standards, technologies, and
players in the
open-access or free online scholarship (FOS) movement" is the Guide to
the
Open Access Movement (http://www.earlham.edu/peters/fos/guide.htm). For
another
excellent source of basic information on open access initiatives and
changes in
scholarly communication, see the "Create Change" website (http://www.createchange.org/)developed
by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and SPARC (Scholarly
Publishing
and Academic Resources Coalition) which is supported by the Association
of
College and Research Libraries (ACRL), all retrieved 18 February 2007.
11. The
Association of Learned and Professional
Society Publishers reported that sixty percent of publishers
participate in
some form of assistance program to aid developing countries. Willinsky 2006:78).
12. The Directory
of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
(http://www.doaj.org/)freely
available on
the web, is maintained by Lund University Libraries. It is the most
important
directory of open-access journals, and currently contains over 2,500
journals.
The aim of the DOAJ is to "increase the visibility and ease of
use
of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting
their
increased usage and impact." It "aims to be comprehensive and cover
all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality
control
system to guarantee the content."
13. A
keyword search in the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) for journals related to criminal justice
excluding the
term law conducted in January 2007 revealed the following 12
open-access
journals in criminal justice: (1) African Journal of Criminology
and Justice
Studies, (2) Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, (3) Champ
Penal (French/English), (4) Edwardsville Journal of Sociology,
(5) ERCES
Online Quarterly Review, (6) International Journal of Criminal
Justice
Sciences, (7) Journal for Crime, Conflict and Media Culture,
(8) Journal
of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, (9) Law, Social
Justice &
Global Development, (10) Revista CENIPEC (Spanish (11) Revista
Española de Investigación Criminológica
(Spanish), and (12) War Crimes,
Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.
14. SPARC,
the Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition, http://www.arl.org/sparc/
is "an alliance of universities, research libraries, and organizations.
The coalition was an initiative of the Association of Research
Libraries (ARL)
started in 1997 to be a constructive response to market dysfunctions in
the
scholarly communication system"
15. See
the SHERPA database of individual publishers'
policies on permissible self-archiving at http://romeo.eprints.org/
16. See
description of the Federal Research Public
Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA) Bill at http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Home.SiteMap
17. A
major organization is this struggle is the The
Alliance for Taxpayer Access which is described on their website as: "A
diverse and growing alliance of organizations representing taxpayers,
patients,
physicians, researchers, and institutions that support open public
access to
taxpayer-funded research." See http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/
(retrieved
February 20, 2007)
18. Rawls (2003:5-6)
develops his theory for a democratic system of government, and he
assumes that
society comprises a fair system of social cooperation between free and
equal
citizens. He also assumes that society is well organized and regulated
by a
public perception of justice. Further, he assumes that society is
guided by
rules and procedures that are publicly recognized and agreed to, that
the rules
specify fair terms of cooperation and are rooted in the notion of
reciprocity
or mutuality so that each person has a chance to promote their own
advantage or
good. Thus, his theory is aimed at determining the "political
conception
of justice for specifying the fair terms of cooperation between
citizens
regarded as fair and equal and as both reasonable and rational (Rawls, 2003:7-8).
19. This
can be called the "equal liberties
principle."
20. This
can be called the "equal opportunity
principle."
21. Rawls
calls this the "difference
principle."
22. For
other examples, see the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Covenant on
Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, and other similar documents. "A Summary of
Agreements on Human Rights." Retrieved 5 January 2007, from http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html
23. Miller
(2003:4-6)
develops his theory for a democratic system of government, and he
assumes that
society is a living organism comprised of individuals, groups, and so
forth who
believe in social justice because it specifies the institutional
arrangements
that allow for full contributions by and well-being of members of the
society.
Further, his theory assumes a bounded society with members; that there
are
specific institutions to which the principles of social justice apply;
and that
the state is the agency capable of changing structures when necessary.